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1 Corinthians 10:16
“The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?”
That the Lord’s Supper is for the purpose of remembering the death of Christ does not seem to be controversial. All the major views of the Lord’s Supper—Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, confessionally Reformed, and memorialist—agree that in the sacrament we are recalling the death of Jesus. The question must be asked, however, whether in the Lord’s Supper something more than a remembrance of Jesus’ death is going on. Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, and the confessionally Reformed all believe that the sacrament is more than a memorial even if they do not agree on exactly what is happening and how Christ is present in the bread and the wine.
One difficulty in understanding what happens in the Lord’s Supper is that we can say only so much before we have to confess that we cannot describe all that is going on. We will endeavor to say what we can, adopting the Reformed view of the Lord’s Supper summarized in the Westminster Confession of Faith and articulated by John Calvin. To begin, we note that in today’s passage, Paul says that the Lord’s Supper is a “participation” in Christ. We could also translate the underlying Greek term (koinōnia) as “fellowship.” This is significant because whether we speak of “participation” or “fellowship,” we see that something more than memory happens when we eat the bread and drink the wine in faith. Participation and fellowship signify a dependence on something or a derivation of something without becoming that something. All creation participates in God, though not in a way that it is fused with deity, is changed into God, or becomes a hybrid of Creator and creature. Instead, all creation participates in or has fellowship in God in that all created things derive their existence from God and are sustained by Him. “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:24–28).
In speaking of participation or fellowship in Christ, however, the Apostle means more than that we derive our existence from and are sustained by Christ, although that is true (Heb. 1:1–2). We are receiving from Him, indeed from the entire Godhead, unending life and all that we need to persevere in grace. Because the flesh of Christ is the flesh of the Son of God, His body and blood are the vehicle through which the blessed life of God comes to our bodies and souls. None of this means that we become God ourselves. It means that in some mysterious way, the Lord’s Supper nourishes us with Christ Himself.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
John Calvin writes in his Institutes of the Christian Religion that Christ’s flesh “is properly said to be life-giving, as it is pervaded with the fulness of life for the purpose of transmitting it to us. . . . So the flesh of Christ is like a rich and inexhaustible fountain, which transfuses into us the life flowing forth from the Godhead into itself.” When we partake of the Lord’s Supper in faith, we are receiving God Himself.
For further study
- Exodus 24:9–11
- John 6:1–65
- 1 Corinthians 11:27
- 2 Peter 1:3–4
The bible in a year
- Ezekiel 35–36
- 1 Peter 3